Paradigm Shifting: Invasives Revisited.
... Current understanding of invasives is outmoded
and lacks ecosystem knowledge.
By: Claude William Genest
Green Mountain Permaculture Institute.
A Chaos Theorist once remarked that it is relatively simple to
find the fault in a design. It's harder to spot the assumptions that
give rise to the fault. And it's hardest of all to identify the world-
view that underlies it all.
A world-view which holds germs as causing disease and "exotic
invaders" as responsible for destroying ecosystems is outmoded, leads
to faulty assumptions and poor design choices. This is painfully true
with our understanding of pioneering successional plant species
wrongly maligned as a "problem".
Gaia Theory
The Nobel prize winning "Gaia Theory" teaches us that the earth
is like a body : it self-organizes, self-repairs, and self-
reproduces. It is a single, self-regulating living system that
organizes itself in such a way as to maintain and create the
conditions suitable for life.
From this systemic perspective it can be rightfully said for example
that we don't "catch a cold". Rather, we make ourselves vulnerable by
compromising the processes that collectively make up our immune
systems. Coughing, sneezing and runny-noses are not the problems of
your cold, they are the solutions ! They are your body expelling the
"exotic invaders".
Similarly, invasive plants are also operating in the context of the
whole-system. Take a closer look: they are absolutely specialized at
cleaning up our mess and repairing degraded soils. Purple
loosestrife's historical progression can be traced right up the
fouled waters of our man-made canals and its ability to fix nitrogen
and mine minerals make it an ideal pioneer species for degraded
former wetlands. Eurasian Millefoils' "thousand leaves" give it more
surface area with which to capture the nutrients we so ignorantly and
abundantly provide and Zebra mussels fix our phosphorous overload
like nobody's business.
An understanding of living systems also does away with the
ecologically untenable notion that anything in nature results in a
monocrop, as any walk in a healthy forest will reveal. Monocrops are
man-made and to think of it, what species has been more invasive and
expensive than the common lawn whose acreage and rates of herbicide
applications exceed those of farms ?
Living systems evolve towards diversity, complexity and resiliency.
Pioneer species including many exotics, "take-over" for what appears
to be a long time only in our myopically short life-spans. The
pattern in fact is one of "succession" in which one species helps
create the conditions for the next. Life creates life, even in death.
Historically Correct ?
The Historical argument holds that what was there once should be
there again.
The historical land use pattern has been to erode top soil through
clearcuts, farm it to death, then turn it to pasture and finally to
hay. We erode the soil and systematically mine its fertility through
intensive, extractive and chemical-laden monocrop practices and then
stand amazed that nature is stepping in to repair the damage.
To recreate the matrix of species that dominated prior to intensive
logging/farming all that is required is but to re-create the soil,
flora and fauna conditions that were then present. The irony is that
Gaia, in association with exotics, is doing just that. Incredibly, we
pay to eradicate this process, then pay again to inappropriately
plant climax plants in a pioneer soil.
A lake's best friend ?
In order for any species to thrive, it needs food. Waste is food
and we are providing the nuisances of Lake Champlain with a
smorgasbord of agricultural, industrial and human nutrients.
The historical land use patterns of the lake have been to both remove
the natural "sponges and buffers" provided by wetlands and then to
dump our wastes into the lake. Many are surprised to learn that the
number one source of point pollution in the lake are water treatment
plants.
We radically alter the life conditions that allowed natives to
flourish, and then blame the exotics for succeeding in the conditions
we created !
How is it that what was once labeled a mere "nuisance" has graduated
to the ranks of "exotic invader" ?
It is important to remind ourselves that species like Zebra mussels
are nuisances only to man: they block his intake pipes, cover his war
relics, and cut his bare feet. But in terms of phosphorous
sequestration they are clearly more a friend to the lake than a foe.
So, does invasive reduction have to be an expensive war ? Or can we
learn to work with natural systems to profitably reduce the waste
stream entering our soils and watersheds? If an ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure, would it not make more sense to eradicate
the human roots of the problem rather than pay to eradicate nature's
solutions ?